A Legate's Story
by VoltageHero
Summary: Dagnor is a Legate in the Empire. Can he stop the Stormcloaks, or will the Empire fall?


_I do not own any of Skyrim or the Elder Scrolls. The only thing made by me in the story is the character Dagnor._

_Note: This chapter was fairly rushed. If I typoed something, I'll get to editing it later._

Chapter 1

Dagnor groaned as he awoke from his bed in Solitude. After helping the Jarl and becoming one of the Empire's best Legates, he would have thought he would have earned the house as a gift, but no. He had to pay like all the "others". Shame, seeing as gold wasn't easy to come by. He sat on the edge of the bed, gazing out over Solitude, the city that was barely awake. Already he saw people running around and shop-keepers getting ready to start their day. He walked over to the closet and pulled on his armor, a Dwarven make. He began to put on his helmet, but left it sitting on the table. No need to limit his vision in the city, when there weren't any threats. He sat down and looked through his food. After deciding on to what to eat, his mind played back what had happened in the last few months. He had arrived at Helgen, just as soon as some Imperials were arresting a few traitors. Being a new recruit, a soldier he was familiar with, Albin, pointed out the two carts, which held the Stormcloaks. On one cart, he had noticed two Stormcloaks, and two other Nords. One was marked as a "horse thief", and the other was strangely quiet through the whole thing. After escaping Helgen, word spread quickly that the "other Nord" on the cart was something called a "Dragonborn" who was "destined to keep the dragons at bay". Dagnor would have dismissed it as nothing, but this so called "Dragonborn" had decided to side with the Stormcloaks, which made Dagnor's job a tad bit harder. His Khajiit friend, Kharjo was allowed to stay in the guard barracks, in Castle Dour. At first, the Khajiit had been shunned, as most were marked as thieves, but as time went on, Kharjo was accepted as just another Legionnaire. Unlike Dagnor, Kharjo wore an Ebony suit of armor. Rumor was that this "Dragonborn" fellow walked around in a suit of "Daedric Armor", which was "supposed to make him look menacing," but rumor also was that this "Dragonborn" didn't know the first thing about killing dragons. According to the guards at Whiterun, where this man first became public, the Dragonborn did nothing, besides staring blankly at the dragon. Dagnor thought about this man, who was supposed to be the "savior of Skyrim", "the one who would end the dragons forever", and chuckled. With any luck, he'd get himself killed, as well as Ulfric. Dagnor stepped outside of his house, and immediately the smell of food hit his nose, and the shouts of the stall-keepers reached his ears. Dagnor approached the Castle Dour's court-yard, to find a few Solitude guards, and well as Kharjo shooting arrows into the targets. Captain Aldis noticed him and waved him down. "Legate, sir," Aldis called. Dagnor nodded towards the man. "Is everything alright, Captain?" Dagnor asked, glancing at the training guards. "Quite, sir. The men are doing a good job at their training. If any of those traitors try to break into Solitude, we'll be ready," the guard Captain grinned, which made Dagnor chuckle. "I don't think we'll have an issue with the Stormcloaks for long, Captain," with a nod to the man, Dagnor nodded to him, and then to Kharjo, who had stopped firing his bow to come over to where the two were. They entered Castle Dour, and hear Legate Rikke and the General were discussing tactics. "Ulfric will try and attack any of our forts that aren't protected, sir," Rikke told the General, gesturing to the red flags on the map. "I know that, Legate, but there isn't much that we can do," the General responded. Dagnor spoke up, "We could, if we could stop their gold flow," which made the Rikke lean back from the map. The General rose an eyebrow. "How would we go about that, Legate? It's not as if they have all their gold on the streets. Wouldn't be too hard, if they did," Dagnor nodded and responded. "Yes, but how protected do you think their gold is? They don't have anywhere that they could hide their gold. If they did, it would be in Windhelm, and it wouldn't take too long to find where it was." This promoted Rikke to cough and speak up, "Let's say we had the resources, and the time to do this, Ragnor. Removing their main source of gold isn't going to change anything. There are too many supporters of the Stormcloaks, who would be more than willing to lose their house to support them," Dagnor shook his head. "Even if they did give up everything they owned, the Stormcloaks would have been set back quite a bit, enough for us to attack their forts, and set up defenses," Tullius nodded slowly. "Alright, Legate, how about this. We will try and go about things without involving Windhelm's gold. If that plan fails, we'll have you to go to Windhelm and do things your way." Dagnor nodded. "For now though, Legate, there is a few Stormcloak camps we have found and we want you and Kharjo to kill those there, and if they surrender, take their weapons and bring them here. Understood?" the General questioned. Dagnor nodded, and Kharjo and he walked back through the hall, leaving Rikke and the General to continue talking. Once outside Solitude gates, Kharjo sighed. "Khajiit thinks we are being tricked, friend," Dagnor shook his head. "No, it was just the General being stubborn. He'll figure out that we have to knock the Stormcloaks down, instead of rushing, headlong into battle," the Khajjit shrugged. Dagnor looked at his map, marked with the locations of the known camps. One was near Dawnstar, another was close to Rorieksted and the last one was even further south, around Falkreath. "Let's head here, here, and finally here," Dagnor said, pointing at the points in order, from which was the closet, to Falkreath. Kharjo nodded. "Let's not waste any time then, Dagnor." Mounting their horses, they headed east, to Dawnstar. Within nightfall, they reached Dawnstar. "It looks like we aren't going to be able to make it to the camp. Let's head to the inn." Dagnor told Kharjo. Tying their horses to a nearby fence, they headed into the inn. Kharjo settled down in front of the fire, and Dagnor went to speak to the innkeeper. "Oh! I know you," the innkeeper told Dagnor as soon as he saw his face. Dagnor had forgotten that he left the helmet back home. "You do?" he asked the man. "Of course! You're that Imperial Legate everybody in Dawnstar has been talking about. You and that priest cured our dream, right?" the man responded, obviously happy to see the man in person. "Oh, that. You should be thanking the priest. He did most of the work," Dagnor chuckled. "Sure, well what does a fellow Nord need tonight?" the man asked. Dagnor answered the man's question, while taking out a few gold coins. "We will be needing two rooms for my fri-", Dagnor stopped, noticing the man raising and eyebrow, and turned to see that Kharjo had already fallen asleep in the chair. "Oh, I didn't notice," Dagnor stepped back to wake the Khajiit up, but was stopped by the innkeeper. "Let him rest there. Save you some coin too," the innkeeper told him politely. Dagnor nodded. "Alright, then I'd like to rent one room for the night." The innkeeper nodded and took Dagnor's gold. "It's the first room on the left. Be careful not to wake up any of the others. The people in Dawnstar hadn't had a good night's rest, until you helped us," the man said, before nodding to Dagnor and placing the gold into his collection of gold. Dagnor walked to his room, and he could hear the sounds of Nords snoring, and the crackling of fire. Inns this small weren't normally talked about, and normally didn't have bards. _Easier to get a good sleep that way_ he thought. He found his room and entered. After closing the door he stepped out of his armor and collapsed on the bed. He tried to fall asleep, and found out that he couldn't. He sat up and judged his surroundings, something he often did when he was bored. The room itself was quite nice, with a small candle over a desk with a chair under it. A few books where on the desk, none which he bothered to read. There were a few other books, and a few basic pieces of clothing in the closet. He looked out of the window, glad that his room had one, over the waters of Dawnstar. The boat was still there, and he doubted if it would ever leave port. Chuckling to himself, he thought about the work he would have to do tomorrow. The Stormcloaks weren't ones to go down without a fight, nor did they often surrender. Hopefully, he could take them by surprise and manage to get out without too much wounds of his own. He thought about the plan, with the gold in Windhelm. He took Kharjo's words into thought. Maybe the General wasn't planning to go with his plan at all, and had just said that so he would shut up. He doubted it. Although some people thought of the General as a harsh man, he was, at least from what Dagnor saw, true to his word. He would look the plan over, in the least. With this, Dagnor yawned as he drifted off to sleep, not knowing what would lay in store in the next few days.


End file.
